Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the motion by the member for Mayo on plastic bags and commend her for it. I'm old enough to remember a time before we brought our shopping home in lightweight plastic bags, when the shop assistant carefully packed the goods into a large brown paper bag. Now, I know brown paper bags don't have a good history in Queensland, because they were always breaking, if the goods were too heavy, or disintegrating, if the cold goods turned the paper soggy. Lightweight plastic bags were a revolution—easy to carry and very strong—but few turned their minds to what would happen to those plastic bags after we used them or reused them.

Australians use an astounding five billion bags a year. In Queensland alone, 900 million single-use plastic shopping bags are used annually. What happens to those 900 million bags? The majority end up in landfill, where they will take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. Shamefully, 16 million of them end up as litter. Not only does that make our community spaces untidy but plastic bags are ingested by wildlife. The plastic doesn't break down in an animal's digestive system and can actually cause it to starve. Ninety per cent of seabird species and 30 per cent of sea turtles have ingested plastic debris. As Queensland is home to the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, this is a shameful tragedy. The Great Barrier Reef is home to six of the world's seven species of marine turtle.

Polluting our precious environment is not only environmentally bad but also economically bad. The Great Barrier Reef is a huge drawcard for tourists in the Sunshine State, and experiencing the beautiful marine life is a highlight of any reef visit. Tourism directly and indirectly employs 225,000 Queenslanders and contributes nearly $13 billion to our economy.

The Queensland government has recognised the importance of protecting our natural resources like the Great Barrier Reef. In 2016, the Palaszczuk government released a discussion paper on implementing a ban of lightweight plastic bags. It received more than 26,000 submissions, and 96 per cent of the respondents supported introducing a ban and 60 per cent of respondents also supported widening the ban to include biodegradable bags. The Palaszczuk government has listened to Queenslanders. From 1 July this year, lightweight plastic shopping bags will be banned. I congratulate the Queensland Labor government for joining the other states and territories that have already banned plastic bags, but I especially congratulate Queensland for bravely going even further than the other states. Queensland is now leading the way by also including biodegradable bags under this ban. Biodegradable bans can be as dangerous for wildlife and as bad for the environment as lightweight plastic shopping bags. There are certain conditions that need to be met for biodegradable plastic bags to break down—firstly, a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, which is not a temperature ever found in our oceans. As biodegradable bags don't float, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, where they will never be exposed to the UV rays that help break them down. In fact, the conditions necessary to break them down are never found anywhere. Instead, they just break into ever-smaller particles which make their way into our oceans, our waterways and our wildlife. So it makes sense to ban biodegradable bags. There is no sense moving away from harmful plastic shopping bags to just replace them with biodegradable bags that are only slightly less harmful. The Queensland government has allowed for a transition period before the ban comes into effect on 1 July. It is hoped that Queenslanders will wholeheartedly embrace the transition away from harmful plastic bags. I encourage my fellow Queenslanders to make the change to environmentally friendly, reusable bags—for example, like this one I'm holding. Do it today. There's no reason to wait until 1 July to stop using plastic bags. Make it a part of your shopping routine. Collect the reusable bags before you leave home or store them in your car. Don't forget them when you're going to the shops. It is better for the Queensland environment, it is better for our economy and, obviously, it's better for the planet.

I encourage the New South Wales state government, which is now, sadly—can you believe it?—the only state or territory government not to implement a ban on plastic bags, to not delay any further. It's just like the State of Origin: you can't beat us—but now, this time, you can join us.

Banning plastic bags is necessary. Plastic bags litter. They pose a real threat to the land and marine environments and, obviously, to our economy and the tourism associated with it. All Australians benefit from protecting our fragile environment. Again, I commend the member for Mayo for this motion.

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